Monthly Archives: February 2016

Chiu-Ki Chan believes in speaking. Best case scenario, speaking gives her a way to share her journey and accomplishments. Worst case scenario, it’s a way to help her make small talk with other conference goers. Either way, she wins. She talks to us about starting Technically Speaking, a digest highlighting talks and open calls for proposals, about how she successfully shares her career achievements without feeling too self-promoting, and how she helps others do the same.

When Matt Mitchell saw the news anchor mention his home country of Grenada, he sat up straight. But his excitement soon turned to confusion when this trusted tv newscaster mispronounced names and places in Grenada, and declared facts that conflicted with reports from his relatives back home. It made him think hard about where data comes from, who tells it, and how it can shift as it exchanges hands. That was the beginning of his passion for news and his work in data journalism. He tells us about his journey, what it’s like to work at the NY Times, and how he combines his love of code to his passion for the news.

Juan loves his home country, Colombia. But he was frustrated by the pervasive negative headlines describing the country as dangerous. He knew Colombia’s potential, and he wanted to show the world what it was capable of. So he started organizing tech conferences. We talk about how conferences have helped grow and strengthen the Latin America tech community, and how Juan manages to do this work from his home in New York.

Majora Carter grew up in the South Bronx, and has spent her life building up the community she loves. Recently, that work has become a bit more technical. She tells us how she created Startup Box, a company focused on providing training and jobs for in-demand roles in quality assurance. We talk about the importance of QA roles in dev, why this work is particularly meaningful to her, and how she’s able to bring her expertise in urban revitalization to the tech world.

She spent over 12 years as a chef. But when Adrienne Lowe decided to invest in coding skills, she didn’t want to leave her culinary love behind. So she merged those two worlds in her blog, a mix of tech and food that got her invited to talk at conference and fall deeper into the coding world she’d discovered. Adrienne shares how she uses her cooking skills to be a better coder, how her love of the python community has made her a passionate community builder, and how a major life event got her started.